Silence falls between us, but Carter hasn’t let go of my hand. I study his face, looking for some clue about what he’s feeling, but he keeps his gaze ahead and his jaw taut. I look over the city, too, in case there are answers in the horizon. Carter places his hand over mine, and I look at him.
“Demons are good at hiding when they don’t want to be found,” he says. “Luckily for you I happen to know a great demon tracker.” His eyes dance. “I’ll help you. If you want me to.”
“You’d do that?” I ask.
He nods. “It may take some time. I have to find commonalities, and figure him out before I can start asking around. I want to know what I’m getting into, but I won’t let you do it alone.”
I kiss him softly, and he wraps his arms around me. “What about this Emmaline woman? Why do you think she’s connected?” he asks.
I bite my lip. I’ve wondered too. She seems like a distraction, but the fact that Gran won’t talk about her, and that all the pieces I’ve found led me to her, I can’t walk away from that. Not until I know why. There’s something about her that I can connect with. Something lost and lonely, and deep inside, that’s the one thing I don’t want to let myself feel.
“I just do,” I say.
“Then I hope she leads you somewhere,” he says. He smiles, but it’s not the same as usual. He doesn’t like any of this, just like Ric didn’t. And I understand their concern, but getting my magic back is all I’ve ever needed. Finally, for the first time, it feels like I may be close to doing exactly that.
Chapter Twenty-Six
We had our last training session with Ellore the next day. She made us do a full practice test simulation, and we passed. Barely. She made us do it again. After the third time, she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “That’s what I expect my trainees to look like out there.”
Carter assures me that was a compliment.
He’s been at my house since then. My head is resting in his lap while I read Emmaline’s journal. I’m hot and tired, but the appeal of Emmaline’s story keeps me moving forward. The test is tomorrow, and Carter’s been shifting through my demon research so he can set up a tracker while I read.
I’ve been ripping through this journal in every spare second I have. I only have like ten pages left, and there’s still so much I don’t understand. Nothing I’ve learned about her explains why our family would write her out of history.
“Want some ice cream?” Carter asks.
I nod but don’t move my eyes from the journal. I think Emmaline and I are connected somehow. The more I learn about her, the more I see myself. She didn’t want to be forgotten, but that’s exactly what happened.
Carter’s hand touches my cheek. “You’re quiet.”
“I can’t stop thinking about her.”
“Her?” He raises an eyebrow.
“Emmaline,” I say, closing the journal. I bite my lip and he nods. “She’s so sad, you know? I get it, Carter. That’s the scary part.”
“So, tell me, then. What do you get about her?”
I scan my room. A place filled with mementos of my childhood, pictures of my family, a board covered in quotes and things that I love, my favorite books. All of these things are part of me and if I was gone, could people just pretend they weren’t part of me anymore? That’s what they did to Emmaline.
Carter is staring at me, his eyes soft and comforting. I touch his face. “Remember when I took you to my parents’ house?” He nods, his movements slower than usual.
“Emmaline wrote that she had a cousin who died in some kind of fire. Her life was so miserable that she wished it had been her. And I can’t help but think that I’ve felt the same way forever,” I say softly.
“Pen—”
“I did. I hated everything I was, Carter, because I wasn’t normal. I work so hard to be this other thing and that’s what Emmaline did and I—”
“You what?”
“I have a feeling that working to not be different destroyed her somehow,” I say. Carter’s fingers twine with mine. I lower my voice to a whisper. I need to say it, but I don’t want him to hear it. I want to be strong, and this isn’t strength. But I still feel it as strongly as I feel anything. “I don’t want it to destroy me, too.”
“It won’t,” he says. “I won’t let it.”
“What if this secret that I’m working so hard to find is horrible?”
“Then we’ll deal with it. Together,” he says. He pulls my chin to face him. “You’re not Emmaline—whatever she went through is the past. Everyone feels invisible sometimes, Pen. Everyone. You are not invisible and you are not powerless.”
I shrink away from him a little. I’m only powerful because he’s around. What happens if he leaves? If we find out my family’s secret is too big, too breakable? Then I’m just me again.
“I see you, Pen,” he says, his hands holding firm to my cheeks. “You’re the sun and the moon and the stars—impossible to miss.” His gaze roams my face until he finds my lips, and my heart beats out of my chest. “I love you, Penelope.”
I pause while his words dance around in my head, and in my heart. He loves me. He looks at me like he’s seeing all of me, even the things I’m afraid to notice and all the stuff I don’t want to see. I believe him. I believe him more than I believe in magic.
I lean into Carter’s hand and kiss his palm. “I love you, too. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’ll never have to find out,” he says.
His thumb traces my lower lip. I watch his eyes darken from the soft green to a daring, sparkling shade that makes my heart beat faster. He leans into me, urging my mouth to meet his with gentleness that quickly turns firmer. His tongue dips between my lips and its stirs a craving inside of me, instinctual and sensual. I sigh against his mouth and he groans. He cradles me in his arms and leans us down until my back rests on the ground. His body moves on top of mine, our hips touching, arms tangling, and legs entwining.
“You’re so beautiful,” he breathes. His words whisper across my skin.
He opens his mouth to say more, but I silence him with another kiss. I thread my fingers through his hair, enjoying the way our kiss deepens. I trace my hands down his back, tug on his shirt and lift it up. My nails trail along his bare skin. He tenses under my touch. I pull his shirt off and feel the muscles of his chest. His lips graze my ear, my chin, my neck. God, he kisses everything, and I feel it in my whole being.
His hands shift, slip under my shirt. They create a path for the fire to follow. I tremble from the heat, from desire, from the feel of his warm fingers sliding down my stomach.
“Penelope,” he says. Carter’s voice is rough, his mouth brushing my ear and his breath warm on my skin. Then he pauses. “We should stop.”
I nod because he’s right, but my head doesn’t listen because my lips are on his again and he’s breathing heavier and my whole body is a mess of fire and ice and desire. His hands don’t stop touching me; his tongue doesn’t leave my mouth. My back arches into him. My foot wraps around his, and then his lips and his hands are gone and he’s sitting up on the floor.
My mind is still reeling when he turns back to me. “Your grandma is downstairs,” he says as if it’s the most simple thing in the world. Like it’s an answer to everything. And it is. I mean, really, but in this moment I really hate that they’re all down there.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, sitting up too.
Carter shakes his head. “I’m not,” he says with a smile. “But I am scared of your grandma.”